


Walk the Stars

by SpraceJunkie



Series: The Galactic Commons [1]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Jack plus a shitton of ocs dhgkdgkf, a very long time, alien abductions, am published part one, and eventually katherine, and i promise the actual characters show up eventually, and then eventually hopefully we'll reach the conclusion where all my worldbuilding, anyways now for the real tags, at least a dualogy, because this is Jack's backstory, but like space human, everyone but Jack can technically be considered an alien?, gets to get shown off, jggkjfdjkf I'm just gay for sci-fi worldbuilding, next is Davey's part of the story, sci-fie, so now I, some of them are "human", this is the first in what will be a trilogy i hope, this series had been my unpublished baby for god knows how long, which will have more chapters, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 20:06:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16667434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpraceJunkie/pseuds/SpraceJunkie
Summary: Part one of a hopefully eventually three-part series that's just a self-indulgent sci-fi worldbuilding exercise that ended up having a fairly okay plot so now y'all are legally obligated to read it.Part one features Jack getting abducted by aliens, and eventually making his place in the galaxy beyond his little planet Earth.





	1. Chapter 1

It was a cool night.

A really cool night, in fact, almost weirdly cool. It was July, it should have been at least seventy-five and his phone was telling him it was only sixty-five, but there had been three thunderstorms during the day, which was a lot, and rain cooled down the air, so that was probably why.

Jack had had a bad day. Nothing had even happened, it had just been one of _those_ days, where he was anxious and couldn’t focus on anything and kind of just wanted to sleep, but he couldn’t fall asleep, even when the sun went down.

So instead he’d slipped out the door, left a note on the kitchen table, and went for a walk.

They lived close enough to the swamp that some of the wildlife seemed to have leaked over into the non-swamp nature near their house. It was one of his favorite places to walk, especially at night, when the noises surrounded him and there was nobody else around.

Tonight was weird, though. He was up in a tree, leaning back against the trunk, sketching the landscape in front of him. He kept pausing, though, looking around, the little anxious pit in his stomach flipping. The hair on the back of his neck kept standing up, too, like somebody was watching him.

He kept glancing up at the sky, too, nervous that the fourth thunderstorm of the day was brewing and the reason his hair was standing up was that lightning was coming, but the sky was clear.

Stars stretched from horizon to horizon, broken by the trees and buildings, but they were bright and beautiful, speckled across the sky.

When he finished the landscape, he studied the stars carefully, trying to capture the patterns he saw.

Normally, being outside under a bright moon would help him feel less anxious, relaxing him enough to be able to go back inside and fall asleep. Tonight, it seemed like the longer he stayed out, the more the anxious feeling in his stomach grew. It felt like every nerve in his body was shivering in unison, like his body was trying to tell him to run, run, something’s coming, you need to leave.

He ignored it, hoping it would go away if he kept forcing himself to focus on his drawing.

Eventually, though, he climbed down from the tree he’d started in and moved further away from town, just wanting to get away from everything. Moving helped the anxiety, too, it helped calm him down a little bit, edging him away from a panic attack. He picked another tree, climbed up as far as he could, and settled into the little crook connecting the branches to the trunk.

Jack didn’t take his sketchbook out this time, he left it in his little backpack, which he hung over his leg. He settled back against the trunk, peering up through the foliage at the stars.

It was more relaxing out here, away from any noise from passing cars or any headlights disrupting his calm little seat. He had just started to relax, his breathing evening out from the almost frantic pace he hadn’t even noticed it reaching.

He wasn’t really close to falling asleep, and he didn’t really want to go home yet, so he just stayed where he was, watching the stars.

And then there was a noise.

Well, it wasn’t exactly a noise, just the kind of almost-noise that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up again. It was kind of a vague...hum, that filled the air around him and didn’t seem to have a source. It made him think of lightning again, so he climbed down to the ground again, looking up and frowning when there still weren’t any clouds above him, and no sign of any lightning.

The almost-noise grew in intensity, and he half-jogged to the nearest clearing, where he could see the sky uninterrupted by the trees. He squinted up at the sky.

A point of light almost directly above him seemed to be getting bigger. He blinked, over and over, trying to clear his vision. It was late, he was tired, it wasn’t an airplane, he was just imagining a star above him growing. Getting closer.

Only...he knew this sky like the back of his hand. He’d carefully mapped it out, painted every single point of light in onto his ceiling, memorized the names and distances, fallen in love with the way the summer sky looked on a night like this.

And that dot was not supposed to be there. In the middle of the Little Dipper? It didn’t belong.

But it was there now, no matter how he tilted his head or where he stepped to, it was in the middle of the Little Dipper, and it was definitely getting bigger.

Closer.

The hum was getting louder, too, the bigger the light got the louder it got, and then he realized it wasn’t exatly a _sound_ so much as it was a feeling, a very physical almost energy that made him want to shiver his way right out of his skin, but he couldn’t quite make himself move.

The light was fascinating. It had looked white when he’d noticed it, and now it was an icy blueish purple, getting closer and closer.

He didn’t believe in aliens, at least not in the sci-fi, Star Wars, Star Trek, advanced civilization already so far ahead of the human race kind of way. It made sense that in a universe so big there’d be other life somewhere, but not like that. He didn’t believe in ships travelling at the speed of light or aliens with the cure to cancer or laser sword fights to decide the fate of everyone in the galaxy.

But something about that light made him want to run.

Every nerve in his body was screaming, run, run, run, they’re coming for you, don’t let them see you, run away, run home, run home and hide under the bed and don’t get up, run because if they see you, it’s over, run.

Finally, that screaming voice in his head won over the almost hypnotic quality of the light, but he didn’t make it home. He made it to the outside of the clearing, to a tall tree with wide, low branches and thick leaves, and he climbed up to where he knew anybody in the clearning wouldn’t be able to see him, and he kept watching the light descend.

Until the thrumming energy he heard as much as he felt got so strong he could feel the tree shaking, and the light touched the ground.

It was hot. Icy blue in color but hot enough he could smell burning leaves and grass where it was touching the cleared ground.

And then the light faded, and Jack _saw_. He saw the smallish, roundish...ship, because that’s what it was, a ship like something straight out of Star Wars or Star Trek or Guardian’s of the Galaxy, made of a grayish metal with yellowish windows, and a door on the side opened, and three...things stepped out, speaking to each other in a harsh, completely unfamiliar language.

A completely alien language.

They were the same color as their ship, wearing some kind of red and yellow padded...armor, maybe? He had absolutely no context for what he was seeing, he couldn’t tell what was happening, and then one of them looked directly at him, and he understood the saying “blood ran cold,” because he felt every last bit of heat leave his body, like he was going to get hypothermia.

Without breaking eye contact, the one that had looked at him said something else in the alien language, and the other two looked at him, too.

He was frozen in place. He felt physically cold and like he couldn’t move if he tried, he couldn’t have run if he tried, and so he just pressed himself backwards into the tree trunk and watched one of them come closer, stand at the base of the tree, look up at him, and start climbing.

He barely felt his arm being grabbed as he was dragged down the tree, slung over the gray thing’s back while it descended, and then he was rather roughly put inside the ship, tied to a little rail next to a panel of flashing buttons, his hands secured so he had no hope of hitting any of them or pulling himself free. He couldn’t see what was going on, and he couldn’t barely hear anything, and he had no idea how much time had passed, he was focusing on breathing and not passing out, hoping desperately that somebody else, somebody else _human_ would come and rescue him.

But eventually, he could see the sun just barely coming up, and the three aliens filed back inside, still talking to each other, carrying massive sacks of what looked like dirt that they dumped into a huge box in the back that they locked shut.

Then they spent a few minutes looking back and forth between each other and Jack, before one of them finally said something decidedly more aggressive than the other two and slammed it’s fist down on a button, closing the door. The other two grumbled something and sat down in chairs, pulling straps down from the ceiling and buckling themselves in while the loudest one roughly pushed and pulled Jack until he could be tied down.

Like cargo.

Like he was one of the bags locked in the box, his hands still tied in front of him and the rest of him tied down in some kind of makeshift seatbelt or harness or something. And then he had his mouth forced open and something was forced inside, and he felt himself start to fall asleep.

The last thing he managed to think, as the humming energy built up around him and he couldn’t keep his eyes open, was, “Oh my god, I’m being abducted by aliens.”


	2. Chapter 2

He woke up still tied, though he was in an entirely different position.

And, when his eyes finally adjusted to the light around him, in an entirely different place.

He was in some kind of bed, and even though his hands were still tied in front of him, he noticed he wasn’t actually tied to the bed.

He swung his legs around, and his ankles weren’t tied together either, so he stood up, trying to move towards the door across from him.

The window distracted him, though.

Stars.

Stars and stars and stars, up above him and down below him, stars were all he could see, no Earth, no sun, no moon, just stars and stars and stars.

He felt his jaw drop as he stared out at...space.

He’d been abducted by aliens and he was in space.

And there was gravity. He was standing up like he was in his own bedroom, he didn’t feel any different.

Maybe a little bit lighter, like the gravity wasn’t quite as strong as he was used to, but it was there. He was stuck to the floor, the pillow and blanket weren’t floating off the bed, he could walk normally.

The door opened behind him and he spun, anxiety bubbling up in him instantly when another one of the gray aliens stepped into his little room. He backed up against the wall, trying to get as far away as possible.

It stepped towards him, holding a bundle of fabric out towards him, saying something he had no hope of understanding. It stepped even closer, forcing the bundle into his arms and gesturing at his own clothes, obviously telling him he had to put the new clothes on.

It stepped back through the door, leaving him alone.

The problem was, he couldn’t get his clothes off with his hands tied, and he had no hope of getting unfamiliar clothes on, either.

He looked around the room, hoping to find something he could use to get his hands free. Maybe then he could...escape? Escape to where.

He’d been abducted by fucking aliens, where was he going to escape to? Space? Steal a spacesuit and spacewalk to the ISS? What the fuck was he supposed to do?

His little backpack was next to the bed, though, and he could tell his phone and sketchbook were still inside. He struggled to get it open enough to pull his sketchbook out; his hands wouldn’t separate far enough to get the opening big enough between the drawstrings. Eventually, he just shook it over the bed until his sketchbook and phone fell out. His pencil was still clipped to the spiral binding, and he pulled that out and opened to a new page.

He had no hope of communicating with words, but he could draw.

Badly, with his hands tied together, which was frustrating. He just wanted to draw his hands tied and then untied, with a drawing of him in new clothes to show what he wanted to do.

The door opened again while he was in the middle of correcting a mistake, and he looked up to see a man standing there. A human man.

“Oh my god.” He said out loud. “Do you speak English?” The man tilted his head, looking confused. “Español?” Another confused look.

The man said something and Jack recognized the same language the aliens used.

An alien, then?

But he looked human. He had a human face, with human eyes and curly hair and teeth just like Jack’s, he looked like any normal human Jack would run into on Earth. But he was speaking their language, and didn’t seem to recognize English or Spanish, which wasn’t impossible, but something was telling Jack he wasn’t looking at a human, at least not a human from Earth.

Somehow, that was even more terrifying than the gray aliens. The thought that there could be aliens that looked so familiar and somehow weren’t.

Maybe they were like the Doctor from Doctor Who, maybe they had two hearts and only _looked_ human, but really weren’t at all.

The man said something else and stepped towards Jack, picking up the sketchbook.

Jack hopefully lifted his hands in the air showing the man the knot as he studied the drawings. The main pointed at him and then at the drawings, a question clearly written on his face. Jack nodded and held his hands out to the man, who nodded back at started picking at the knot.

Okay, so nodding seemed to mean the same thing. Or at least he’d understood what Jack had meant when he’d nodded and repeated the gesture.

Jack hadn’t been so frustrated with a lack of communication since he was six years old and his teacher had refused to speak Spanish to him even though they both knew full well she was fluent in Spanish and he was still struggling with English.

There was nothing worse than not being able to express what he wanted.

And it didn’t help that he was still absolutely terrified.

Since, you know, he’d been abducted by aliens and was in a ship flying through space.

The knot finally came loose and he immediately pulled his hands away, out of the rope and the hands of the man who’d untied him.

His hand were warm, like any other human’s hands.

The closer he seemed to a human, the creepier he got. What was the word for that? The uncanny valley. Something that was so close to being human but not quite was far scarier than any surreal looking monster.

Or alien.

The man picked up the bundle of clothes still next to Jack on the bed and offered them up again, pointing at the drawing Jack had half completed of him in them. Jack nodded again, and pointed at the door.

The man said something, looking frustrated when Jack shook his head, not understanding. He crossed his arms and settled down onto the bed, looking at Jack pointedly.

Jack put the clothes down and shook his head, pointing at the door again.

“I’m not changing with you in here.” He said, and the man sighed and replied in his own language, not moving. Jack crossed his arms.

Stubborn he could do.

He met the man’s eyes, ignoring how scared he was, determined to win this one. He wasn’t changing in front of this alien man.

Finally, the man sighed again and stood up, shaking his head and saying something else, gesturing at the door. He walked it and closed it behind him, and Jack heard it lock with a thump.

There wasn’t anywhere for him to go, anyway. He was in _space_ , he couldn’t exactly walk out the front door and head for home.

The clothes were humongous on him. The man had probably been a couple inches taller than him, and the clothes clearly belonged to him. They were comfortable enough, other than the fact Jack had to roll the sleeves and pant legs up so he could move. He knocked on the door.

“Hey, I’m done changing.” He said, and the door whooshed open, the man pushing inside again. He put a bowl down on the table next to the bed and left again immediately, mumbling something under his breath.

Jack looked at the bowl suspiciously. It smelled pretty good. Kind of like tacos.

It was obviously supposed to be food, there was even a six-pronged fork next to it. Six pronged. For some reason that weirded him out. Forks had four prongs, they always had four prongs, it was really weird to see a fork with six prongs.

He was hungry, though. And it smelled really good.

He tentatively stabbed a little bit of whatever was in the bowl, lifting it up to look at it closer.

He had no idea what it was. At all. It looked like some kind of meat, but a weird meat. More the texture of meat and the appearance of a vegetable. Like eggplant, maybe. He licked it before trying to take a bite, and it tasted kind of like tacos, too. So he bit it, and it was good.

Not really great, but good. He ate all of it, then sat back down on the bed, bored.

The door was locked again, his phone didn’t have service, though it did have battery, and nobody seemed to be coming in to check on him any time soon.

And even if they did, what would he do? He couldn’t fight them, he couldn’t get home, he couldn’t escape, he was stuck.

It was a miracle he hadn’t spiraled all the way into an anxiety attack yet. It was probably the adrenaline. Or whatever they’d drugged him with. Maybe both.

Probably both.

He picked up his sketchbook again, flipping to another new page and starting to draw another portrait, this one of the gray aliens he’d seen first.

They kind of reminded him of rhinos, or rocks. They looked tough enough to catch a bullet in their teeth. He could picture them very clearly, down the terrifying glare that was the only expression he’d seen on one of their faces so far.

He got lost in his drawing, trying to capture every detail he possibly could. The door whooshed open again, and the human man stepped inside again. He snatched the sketchbook out of Jack’s hands, examining the picture carefully before smiling. He sat down next to Jack, holding the sketchbook inbetween them. He pointed at the picture and said something, then made eye contact with Jack and repeated the single word again, like he wanted Jack to repeat it.

“Tay-fawn.” Jack tried, and the man’s smile grew.

“Teh-fahn.” He said, slower.

“Tehfan.” Jack said, trying to imitate the accent the language had. It was weird, much rounder and softer than either English or Spanish, and it was hard to copy, but the man nodded again. Jack looked down at the picture he’d drawn, realizing his art was likely the best way to get the language taught to him. He pointed at himself first, though. “I’m Jack.” He said.

“Ahm-Chack.” Is what the man said back to him, and that made Jack almost laugh. Obviously, the accent barrier worked both ways, and Jack wasn’t a name he’d heard before.

“Jack.” He said again, emphasizing the “J” sound.

“Jack.” The man said again, this time getting much closer to the right consonant but still having a “ch” in there somewhere. Jack nodded, and the man pointed at himself.

“Ira.” He said, rolling the “r” sound so the name sounded almost but not quite Spanish.

“Ira.” Jack repeated. He could say that one, first try. Somebody yelled something from outside the door, and Ira stood up, closing his eyes and resting his head on his hands like he was miming sleep. He pointed at the bed and offered Jack a pill.

Jack shook his head, crossing his arms and keeping his mouth shut tight. Ira sighed again, said something over his shoulder, and stepped towards Jack, roughly forcing his mouth open and pushing the pill inside.

Again, Jack almost instantly felt himself falling asleep, barely even awake enough to notice his head hitting the mattress or Ira pulling a blanket over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey listen for real I'm gonna keep writing this anyway bc I love my sci-fi more than anything but please lmk if you want to read it because I don't want to keep posting things that nobody wants to read!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all I'm Asper and I'm gay for sci-fi worldbuilding and cool aliens jshgksgkf
> 
> I already have a lot of part two of this series written so I can absolutely promise if people like this one you'll get part two but god knows if I'll ever risk writing part three because I love this world too much to want to mess it up and I'm a worthless writer so oops
> 
> Please comment if you like this idea, I won't waste energy finishing this if people won't read it because then what's the point? So please leave a comment!
> 
> Also come hang out on Tumblr @enby-crutchie, where I spend a lot of time being gay and having a good time.


End file.
